News from the Votemaster

If you missed yesterday's run-down on Nevada and South Carolina, click on the
"Previous report" link to the right of the map above.

At this point, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are probably the front runners.
Clinton has the advantage that she is popular in the big states that vote Feb. 5,
but Obama is inspiring young people to vote like never before. If they really do,
he could pull it off. On the Republican side, "None of the above" is clearly the
front runner, with John McCain coming in second under the slogan "The lesser of
five or six evils."

Just for the fun of it, imagine that Clinton and McCain are the nominees.
What would the general election look like?
SurveyUSA has run some head-to-head polls
in various states and the results are shown on the map above. For states they
didn't poll, the 2004 election results are used. Be warned that the election is
more than nine months away. That's a long time. You could decide to have a baby
and completely execute the plan before the election. Tomorrow: Obama vs. McCain.

Duncan Hunter (R) dropped out of the race. He has one delegate. The delegate
still gets to go to the RNC in Minneapolis, but can vote for anyone he or she
wants to there. Chances are, a staffer working for each of the candidates has
called to introduce himself or herself and ask for support. It is useful to
remember than delegates are actual people, with jobs and houses and kids, not
just numbers on some Excel spreadsheet. Most are party activists, but in a
brokered convention, all of them may exhibit free will.

CNN is keeping track of the delegates for the
Democrats
and for the
Republicans.
Note that other sources may differ because CNN is trying to count the PLEOs (Party Leaders and
Elected Officials) and when different reporters call a PLEO and hear "Well, I like Hillary,
but Barack has his charms too" they may score it differently.
Here is CNN's count: